Personal mobile devices such as personal computers, tablets, and smart phones have gained widespread use over a relatively short period of time. Such devices are so common that they are approaching commodity status. Their widespread use and their breathtaking performance have resulted in major changes in the way we look at and use communications.
Most mobile devices rely on a major network operator (“carrier”) to provide basic communications, texting, and support for wireless data and internet access.
The majority of carrier subscribers participate in what are known as “family plans”-families or groups of individuals that enter into a joint billing contract with a carrier. Because of the joint billing contract, simply being in a family plan tends to be indicative of a family relationship or the existence of an otherwise close and trusting relationship.
One reason for the widespread use of personal mobile devices is parents obtaining such devices for their children to use. While parents may purchase personal mobile devices for their children for many different reasons one very common reason is to implement a communication “lifeline”—an always available and always open channel that provides direct communications between family members, particularly between the parent and child. The availability of such lifelines has motivated parents to obtain personal mobile devices for children of younger and younger ages.
Family plans generally have two main types of users that are referred to herein as “parent” class users and “child” class users: A parent is a primary account holder who has authorized others to access and use the services of a family plan offered by a carrier. A child is any user whose mobile device has been authorized by the parent to access and use the services of the family plan offered by the carrier. In practice the parent gets billed for the cost of the family plan while the children get “free” access to the family plan. Generally the parent is also authorized to use the carrier's family plan. A family-plan management system that provides for and implements family-plan services would be beneficial.
Whether part of a family plan or not, modern high performance mobile devices support a variety of different types of software applications, specifically including “widgets”. A widget is a software application having a graphical user interface icon that can be placed on the top-level interface of the mobile device, with that top-level sometimes being referred to as a “desktop home screen.” Lower level visual interfaces are also provided on desktops. A widget provides an interactive and usually customizable presence on the mobile device desktop home screen. By simply using a widget a user can initiate a programmed action or view pertinent information without leaving the desktop home screen. Additionally, by placing the widget on the desktop home screen at mobile device start-up the widget can be used without subsequent initializing and/or loading.
There are thousands and thousands of widgets currently available. But, there is a very limited amount of space on a mobile device desktop home screen. Thus the number of widgets that can be run from the desktop home screen using graphical image interfaces is limited and the competition for the limited mobile device desktop home screen space is intense. Only the most useful widgets are loaded onto the desktop home screen at mobile device start up.
To maximize the number of graphical icons and to provide more visually pleasing desktop home screen widget graphical interfaces can be arranged in tiles. Widget graphical interfaces can either be placed manually by users or automatically arranged on the desktop home screen.